Wildfires, water rationing and snow-free mountaintops are all becoming the new norm in California.
The Golden State is experiencing the most severe drought on record, and research suggests the conditions will only worsen in the coming decades.
"Climate change is going to lead to overall much drier conditions toward the end of the 21st century than anything we've seen in probably the last 1,000 years," said Benjamin Cook, a climatologist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
But despite the drier conditions and the apocalyptic headlines, California is unlikely to become a parched, uninhabitable hellscape, experts say. Southern California's forest may transform into scrub and grassland. And a drier climate may force a transformation or reduction of the state's agricultural economy. But with some forethought and planning, the state should have enough water to support the millions of people who live there, experts say. [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]
"In the next few decades, warming is not going to cause California to be a wasteland," said A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York City.
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